In the sims 2 I usually create families and create a certain storyline for them based on some ideas or something I'm interested in. But when I get new ideas, or something I create another family for that, and play them leaving the first left behind. Does anybody else have that bad habit of abandoning families?

I know it bothers me so much. Like not too long ago I was doing a story about a single mother. I even went through the work of taking screenshots in story mode, and adding dates and years to them. But then I saw a movie made with the sims 2. I created a family and a new home. I made the new sims look so good I don't want to stop playing them, but I left behind my other family and story. How does one get out of this habit?

Yeah unfortunately this isn't going to be one of the issues fixed with a link to a tutorial or something. In the Sims 4 though, I've been playing the same family since the second day it came out. But that's probably because I can't use most of my ideas in that game it's so limited.

Don't think of it as abandonin them ... but incorporate them into your new family's story.
Ideas for such ...

Do either of them have kids? .. make the kids friends .. maybe even for dating or marriage
Make them long lost relatives ..
Make them neighbors ..
Have the single mom work for the other family ..

You don't have to stick with just one family ... fill the neighborhood with many families and play them round robin style

I think this is why some of us do rotational playing.

I used to do this. Before I knew what to not do to avoid corrupting my neighborhood. But after I had to restart, I moved to rotations. I still move from concept to concept, but I do it on a much grander, neighborhood wide, scale.

Yeah, rotations is the cure for this. Just make a personal rule that you will play each family for "X" number of days and switch back and forth between them. It's not like Family A will go anywhere or do anything while you're playing Family B. Just keep the number of days you play each one the same and, unless you go for really long rotations, the ages of the respective family members will stay in sync.

I, too, got this under control by establishing rules about rotations. I usually play families for 24 hours from 7 AM to 7 AM, and this is one rotation (though in case of special events, I may make the rotation longer, but if it's a full day longer, I'll leave the house out for the next rotation to not get it too much out of sync). This way, it enables me to focus on all families, not just my favorites as I play in a Megahood with lots and lots of families. It never gets boring! Even the dullest of the families are alright if you just play then for 1 day at a time.

If a strict rotation system doesn't work for you, you could also try merging the families and playing them together? Or, if you have Apartment Life, you could move them into 2 separate apartments on the same lot (doesn't have to be apartments, can also be houses marked as apartments for the game, so they can be placed on the same lot). This way, one of your families can interact with the other even when you're playing just one.

I literally do it all the damn time. I even create new families just for testing out new custom content. I probably have over 60 families by now.

I used to play like that. Spent forever making the family, building a house, and thinking of a story. But then when it came to playing it, I got bored.

There are three things that made me stop
1. I grew up. And by that I mean I stopped being 14 and got a better attention span.
2. I started reading this forum actively. Seeing the stories other people make, and how they play, influenced me to want to incorporate some of their elements into my game, in a sort of buffet of play styles.
3. I stopped doing the same thing with every story. While the exact Sim and personality varied, it was always centered around the same corners. Find love, make family, be perfect. All kids had top grades, all parents top of career, everyone with max skills. The aesthetics of each Sim changed, and details in the story, but it was always centered around the same kind of life-goal.

Rotations weren't the answer for me. I wish I could play like that, because it'd make it easier to keep everyone on the same timeline. But to enjoy the game, I need the freedom to play what I feel like right now. If I force myself to play a household because they need to catch up, then I don't enjoy the game, the story gets flat, and I end up not playing Sims for a while. That one-family focus still exists, it's just become less of a abandon-situation. I know I'll be interested in that family again, I just need a break. It helps to have lots of connections between households, so that you still see those Sims. Eventually they will make you want to play them again.

I used to do that too, but my main problem was that almost every two or three days I created a new family (while abandoning the 'old' ones), but they were almost exactly the same (I kind of had a pattern back then; guy meets girl, guy marries girl, they buy a house, get a dog&cat, get jobs and have children). Then I tried playing in the existing households (Pleasantview was my favourite, because it has lots of drama and interesting stories that I can start with) and that kind of worked for me (until my game crushed and I had to re-install it).
Now I'm playing ... medieval&renaissance and this works for me too. I only have one neighbourhood in which I have all my families and I'm playing by rotation. Not all families are very fun or interesting to play with, but I have to keep everyone at the same ... level, so I have to play with every household. It takes me some time (especially now that I have so many classes and exams), but knowing that I don't have 'abandoned' family members or households makes me feel a little better

Well, the Single mother lives in a downtown I created Toledo, Spain, and the other family lives in another created downtown, Arlington, New York so it would be unrealistic for both families to see each other all the way. But I might have an idea. maybe the single mother can be like a penpal to one of the other sims, and then eventually they meet up.

I think I'm really a long-haul player. My main game is the Veronaville I started on the first day I played. I am very fond of the Sims in first households I created, and I keep coming back to them. So I don't really abandon families. I can however neglect them inasmuch that I don't play them for a long time. But they're still there, and (D.V.) I can and shall come back to them. I invariably play with aging off, and nearly all my Sims are still in the same age group they started in, so there's no problem about families getting out of synch. I play what I call "loose rotations", but that just means that I look round the 'hood and ask myself, what family hasn't been played for a while. But it's not a rigid rule, and if I want to go on playing another family instead, then I do. After all the game is primarily there for my entertainment, not to satisfy a list of rules! Peni has what I think is a good compromise. She plays 1 day (24 hour) rotations, but if she wants to go on playing that family, she just turn aging off and goes on playing. So her families stay in synch even if she plays one family for a fortnight.

I don't abandon neighbourhoods either. They all stay in my Neighbourhoods folder, so I can come back to them any time I choose. And I keep lots of backups, so, hopefully, even if a 'hood becomes unplayably corrupted, I can go back and play it from a recent back-up.
Somewhere out there there's a "local walk-bys" hack which stops Sims from walking by in a different sub-hood to the one they live in. Since you imagine the Atlantic Ocean between your Downtowns, I think it could be a very useful hack for you. Perhaps someone who uses it can link to it?

[EDIT] I've found the Local Walk-bys hack. It's by Pescado at MATY. It's localwalkby.zip from here.

LOL .. that's where long lost relatives come into play :D

Can say .. maybe that in diggin through records that one of them, whoever was doin the diggin, found a skeleton in their closet. One of their (great) grandparents (or however far back) had an affair with so 'n so and their relative was the result.

:D

I play all my families in rotation, so I never abandon them. Of course, in the past, I've just killed off families I no longer care about to make the rotation easier, so.....

I just go on hiatus with them. I don't abandon them. The progression can get all wonky, but ... maybe they're drinking lots of Elixir of Life or something. I don't worry about it unless looks REALLY odd. Then I can age up if necessary.

Now abandoning entire hoods ... that's another story.

I used to abondining not only families but entire hoods all the time, until a few month ago.

Being someone who prefer analysing and strategic gameplays, I get bored of playing sims where you play the game with the "flow" (playing for the entertainment sake and dont bother if your sims is getting married to their own descendents ). Also I prefer more realistic gameplays or else its feels like Im playing barbie pixels. I want them to age and live similiare to our own lives -----with some twist here and there - creating different storyplots for each of them whether they are happy guy meet girl live happy forever or sims having a harder life (death, loosing their kids, cheating, violence) etc doesnt matter. I never played the game to escape reality, I playing the game to create my own stories, nor despite prefering realistic stories, I dont I treat sims like real life people. Im not a kid, Im not afraid of pixels burning to death or let them have several kids right away or in their teens.

So for me personally, I prefer playing the game in rotation, but not strict rotation. Because after I played all families in a certain order, I rearrange the order and amount of the days for the rest.
Some rotations are 4 days, some ones are just 24 hour while other times, I go to play a family for 24 sim hour and then play another 4 simdays straight and then go back the 24hour family later. Ive a spreedsheet on wordpard where I write down their household name and members plus a mini biography about the family that then when Ive played that family, I copy the description and move in the end of the list. That way I see who Ive been playing and which ones I need to play. Ive never got bored because each rotation are different. Looking at a numbered list of households each time after I played their lot isnt so much "hard thinking" really. Keeping the hood sync based on season are also great, because you can just look at the neighborhood to see which season each household is in. But my own custom hoods are age modified so Ive stop playing with seasons.

I think you just need to find a gameplay to fit your prefersonal preference, what you want to from the game and then come up with a gameplay system that works for YOU. If you dont like playing the game with strategies, then playing it in rotation, season,weeks or by spreedsheets, you won't get any fun out of the game.

I cannot stand sims and townies living in a barbie fairytale who never age and where everyone has happy lifes, but thats just my own personal preference, so for me the age sync is one of the most important factor.
I love dramas, sudden plot twists and watching sob storing movies or read about in real life and have no problem bringing it into the game. But for those who horror these stuff in real life (like aging, violence etc), it might be different story. :P

Ugh...sorry for the OT. Ive always wondering similare question myself (like if its a waste of real-life-time to play the games but then after all real life hours you have spend playing it and then suddenly "im bored, time to delete this hood and create a new one! and abandon it" ? that was me a couple of month ago. )

ooo no, I never abandon sims and their stories - they just keep going. Never have. I play Little Carping in rotation and, even when I'm playing regularly, it takes me nearly two months to get through them all in one rotation. But it keeps me happy. I'd miss them if I didn't do that.

I just play my Sims households as I feel it at the time, if I decide I will play household A or B Or C this time around then I enter it. ( don't matter to me who is next )
The good thing I love about the Sims 2 game is whatever stage you have left your household in, they will still be that way ( frozen ) when you return to that household.
Unlike that other Sims game that control your Sims and how they are when you return, but I am sure we all have our favorites households that tend to get play more than others.

I used to have a bad habit of abandoning families but then I started playing rotation and now I have a bad habit of abandoning hoods. I do good for up to three months but then I want to go to a different time period or something like that and end up making a new hood.

Same here. I fall totally and utterly head over heels in love with (some of) my 'hoods, but then when a new idea comes along, days or weeks or months along the line, I end up abandoning the old 'hood and never looking back.....

I was going to say I don't abandon families I abandon entire hoods! Not to say I won't ever go back, but I never feel inclined these days to play my old sims 2 folder due to it taking an hour to load and I am enjoying my new integrated hood way more as I have planned it better.

I can't imagine that I'll ever willingly abandon Veronaville and never see young Andrew Jones and his mum again. They've been with me from the beginning -- my very first Sims. I can play and enjoy other families and 'hoods for a long while, but whenever I open up 19 Chorus Court and see them, I feel I've come home. :lovestruc

If you are talking about abandoning families by locking them in a cage and starving them, then yes.
I believe it was the maxis family where the teens had to take care of a bunch of children.

I recently remember that I have a single knowledge Sim somewhere in my hood with really big eyes. I decided that he was abandoned long enough and started playing with him - and kept on playing - and kept on playing with him - he turned out to be quite awesome! But, yes, pleading guilty. Although I do try to get around to all of them.